Customer Reviews

Would Somebody Please Send Me to My Room! A Hilarious Look at Family Life

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My kids are so old they are out of our house and our wallets - at least most of the time.

Parenting, viewed in glorious hindsight, surely was easy - except maybe those teen years.

When kids are little they try your parenting know-how; when they are teens they try your patience and everything else. If you raised them right, and some good luck prevailed, they try and hopefully succeed in becoming good human beings.

Harried parents, chaotic situations, second guessing our decisions are all fodder for humor - and Bob does it well. Sometimes all you can do is laugh (but just don't let the kids see you do it).

As a syndicated columnist of "Parent to Parent," Bob has captured the every-day joys and horrors of parenting, and all the while you read, you are smiling and laughing out loud. I know I did. What a hoot!

If you are in the thick of raising kids, give yourself a gift. If you are grandparents, you know your own kids need this book - because you raised them and remember all their tricks, trials and tribulations. It is only justice they suffer as you did ... and laugh about it.

The days I have the luxury of actually sending myself to my room, I like to take Bob's book and simply toss the book upon my my bed. Whatever pages the book opens to, whatever paragraph I start out reading, I get a laugh--every time, no exceptions. Sometimes it's a snicker, sometimes a hearty chuckle, and sometimes, a great, big belly-laugh!

Oftentimes while reading this book, I'd wonder about what it must be like to live inside Bob's head, with his incredibly zany way of looking at things! Then I'd think, better stress management for Bob to live in MY head. Reality: Right now the best thing going is reading Bob's work and laughing through it all--page by page, paragraph by paragraph.

I absolutely love this book.

"Don't put marbles down the garbage disposal" and "the shower curtain goes INSIDE the tub" are just two pieces of advice author Bob Schwartz has to teach his kids. If this resonates with you (you, there, fishing the peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwich out of the VCR) then this book is for you. The book is a combination humor and parental guidance, mainly reminding parents that children are, well, children. They aren't perfect, they don't reason well and well, *$%@ happens.

Bob's writing is like listening to a friend talk. His family has the same wacky traditions you find in any family-such as "Trombone Standard Time" (an incredibly accelerated time warp characterized by a half an hour of trombone practice that actually takes up only seconds in Standard Time.)

My favorite section is about how the two families (his and his wife's) celebrate Thanksgiving differently. Bob's family serves traditional foods, nothing more exciting than green peas on a plate. When, relates Schwartz, diced carrots were added one holiday to the peas, a family meeting had to be hurriedly arranged to vote on this new and strange addition. By contrast, his wife's family celebrates the holiday with ear-splitting karaoke, wild jello salads, jalapeno quiche and an uncle's rendition of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" (one can only imagine this scene in one's head. Schwartz gives the barest of descriptions, I feel, because words fail him here!)

The book is something that most families will enjoy, and will give examples of child behavior and how to handle it with grace and humor that probably will serve to destress the harried parent. Fun book.

For me the funniest thing I have ever read about becoming a parent was Dave Barry's infamous column on the birth of a child and that special moment when the doctor asks the new father if he would like to view the placenta (Barry suggests that particular experience is something that should be tacked on to criminal penalties). I bring that up that particular comedic reference point because the humor you will find in Bob Schwartz's "Would Somebody Please Send Me to My Room! A Hilarious Look at Family Life" is not like that. This is a kindly, gentler look at the "joys" of parenthood and of adults attempting to co-exist in a household with adolescents, at which point the notion of parenthood no longer seems to be an accurate description of what is going on.

In other words, ultimately the humor here comes more from Schwartz's observations than his jokes. These pieces have been collected from various magazines and newspapers. They are devoted to subjects from eternal concerns such as babies crying ("In the Shrill of the Night") to 21st century concerns such as the Harry Potter books ("The Sorcerer's Stone and My Cover Is Blown"). The pieces are arranged thematically with half of an eye towards the chronological experiences of raising children, so we begin with "'That's the Crib Post Up Ahead, Your Next Stop--The "Newborn Zone!"'" (I think I got the quote marks right on that one) and end in the vicinity of "Tag Teaming Family Life," which involves things like music clubs, food warehouses, and changing the diaper on the newest family arrival. So you can see that this one rally is all about the kids, no matter how much parents want to try and move the agenda to other subjects.

You want to go through these pieces one or two at a time. "Would Somebody Please Send Me to My Room!" is one of those books that probably works best sitting on your nightstand so that you can read a chapter or two each night as a reminder that you really did plan on having children taking over your entire life. You are not the only one who does not remember how to do Algebra, has to clear a driveway of snow over and over again during winter, and who is seriously being dated by their music (and not in a good way). This book reminds you that you are not alone and that most of the time laughing is the superior option to crying. If you know a beleaguered parent or two (they tend to come in pairs when found in nature), then this could be an appropriate Christmas present.

I ended up rounding up on this one because of the illustrations by B.K. Taylor. All too often the illustrations in such books end up being rather inconsequential to the proceedings, but that is not the case her. My favorite (82) shows a smiling father comforting his crying daughter over the horrifically mislaid eye thingamajig of her favorite doll, but I also like the father and son confronting the wall of blue jeans (152), the Halloween candy thief (250), and, of course, Freud at the marshmallow roast (258). I also appreciate the fact that Taylor does a drawing for every single one of these 49 pieces, because on some of these there is no obvious visual joke to draw up.

Bob's Would Somebody Please Send Me to My Room! hits the nail on the head.

Parenting is hard work; but we must look to see the fun times in the mayhem! They are only small once (Thank You God!) and Bob's book can help a harried parent realize he or she is not alone in the chaos of family life.

My favorite phrase: We could not get him off the computer without the assistance of a crowbar.

Thanks Bob! Fun read!

Truly brilliant humor!! It doesn't matter whether you have children or not, this book will have you laughing from the beginning to the end. It's truly a must read book.

I have found that a quick fix to relieveing stress or if I just need to laugh out loud is to pick up Bob Schwartz' book and start reading --what a difference it makes... really, just ask my kids (or co-workers)!!

Very funny - been there, done that and it's ok. Get this for all of your friends!

Bob, it's as if you were peeking into my household eon's ago! I just could not put the book down...I was continually shaking my head "yes, yes" and just loving the memories.

Everyone needs to have this book to validate the hilarious hair-raising craziness that is part of our everyday lives as parents.

Thanks for bringing back the memories.

Mr. Schwartz has written a great book and it's funny and helpful at the same time. Bob knows what fathers go through and it comes across in his book. The book will make you laugh at the things that happen in your own life and who couldn't use this. We think it a great book and that Bob has a great writing style, which is why we feature his column in REAL DAD Magazine. This is a book well worth the read.

Very entertaining and enjoyable, and also a book which let's us know as parents that "we are not alone". Bob reminds us that the parent-child relationship is not always easy, and that despite our size and age advantages we are not always in charge. We are also reminded, however, that at the end of the day family life is life at it's best.